Accompanying the globalisation of the world economy and the internationalisation of Chinese CBs, the research in terms of the international competitiveness of the CBI and Chinese CBs has become urgent and significant. The motivations and targets of this research are to understand the status quo of international competitiveness of the CBI and Chinese CBs; to recognise the actual gap in the aspects of international competitiveness between Chinese CBs and the Western advanced CBs; to find out the issues and main causes that existed in and determined the international competitiveness of Chinese CBs; and to work out the approaches to solve the issues and boost the international competitiveness of the CBI and Chinese CBs. According to the analyses of the international background, domestic context and specific situation, and the review of previous relevant literatures in terms of the international competitiveness and international competitiveness of CB, the general framework of this research is based on the fundamental theory – New Institutional Economics (NIE), especially the Institutional Change Theory (ICT), and applied four key factors – Business Scale, Profitability, Asset Quality and Overseas Business Margin, as well as some necessary macro and micro -specific determinants, to multi-dimensionally examine and comprehensivelyevaluate the real level of international competitiveness of the CBI and some Chinese CBs during the last three decades, in particular during the last decade since 2003. This basic framework established the theoretical foundation for this research; it is the general framework that is jointly consisted of the constitution, determinants and evaluation sub-frameworks of international competitiveness of CB. In this research, the international competitiveness of CB mainly includes: Business Scale International Competitiveness, Profitability International Competitiveness, Soundness International Competitiveness and Overseas Business International Competitiveness. These four aspects of international competitiveness of CB can be all measured by relative indicators that can be calculated through relative financial data; thus, the international competitiveness of CB could be then synthetically, directly andexternally evaluated and reflected. Basically, the determined framework of international competitiveness of CB is referred to reveal how the international competiveness of CB is determined. According to the value theory of dialectical-materialism, object development is decided by its internal and external causes; therefore, in this research, the scale, management, technology and international administration are considered as the major internal factors to determine the international competitiveness of CB, while the governmental functions, horizontal industrial competition, market supply and demands, and industrial trend at home and abroad are suggested as themajor external factors to reflect the international competitiveness of CB. Based on the determined framework and the internal-external cause theory, as well as considering the cross-border competition as the mainstream of the international competition for CBs, it can be seen that the deciding model and evaluation model are combined together to set up the overall models for evaluating and reflecting the international competitiveness of China’s CBs. According to the results calculated by the models, the separate and joint evaluations are made to jointly estimate the real level of international competitiveness of Chinese CBs; then the internal and external critical analyses are taken into consideration to reveal how the internal and external major factors reflect and influence the international competitiveness of CBI. Finally, a set of approaches in terms of how to further improve and boost the internationalcompetitiveness of the CBI and Chinese CBs are accordingly suggested. The findings of this research present that the historical evolution of China’s banking is fundamentally driven by the institutional changes and the shifts of administrative ideologies of the CCP; and intrinsically influenced by the dominant culture of Confucianism in China. The international competitiveness of the CBI has been increasingly improving, in particular since 2003; the development of the CBI has been actually always adhering to the reform and opening-up guideline in terms of “Crossing the River by Touching the Stones”, and the internationalisation of the CBI has been mostly suggested to insist on a strategy of “Incremental Approach”, which also represents the Way of the Golden Mean (Zhong Yong Zhi Dao) of Confucian ideology and acting philosophy. According to the evaluation results, Chinese CBs hold a very strong IC on the Business Scale and Home-base Profitability; their Soundness IC has bee also hugely improved; however, if comparing with their foreign advanced peers, such like HSBC and JP Morgan etc., their overseas business IC has been relatively much weaker; this means that the internationalisation of CBI and Chinese CB still has a long way to go to strategically catch up and explore. Additionally, other sense of the banking industry is also highly recognised. The real essence of China’s banking reform has been eventually designed by the elites and ultimately influenced by the special interest groups. The fundamental issues of the banking sector have been not completely handled; the financial ecology of the banking business has been one of the greatest factors for the banking performance; the international competitiveness of Chinese CBs has been mostly country-specific and home-based; and the whole banking system has been seemingly-seriously captured by the housing market and the municipal platform debts; hence, these huge potential operating risks have been seriously concerned. Conclusively, the international competitiveness of Chinese CBs would have been significantly damaged if the banking industry could not be further improve the regulatory regime, optimise the business environment, reform the corporate governance structure, consummate the operational system; and work out the deep and ingenerate issues such as lending mechanism, profitability model, risk management, technological innovation, political intervention, internationalising strategy, etc. Even though this researcher has taken great efforts to make his own contributions in this project, the findings and conclusions are still thought to be not sophisticate and significant enough; hence, further research of this specific theme will be more deepening and focusing, in particular on the improvement of the research methodology, the data collection and the financial ecology of the CBI.

In planning for future electricity supplies certain issues will need to be considered such as increased energy usage, urbanisation, reduction in personnel, global warming and the conservation of natural resources. As the result, some countries have investigated the transformation of their existing power grid to the so-called Smart Grid. The Smart Grid has three main characteristics which are, to some degree, antagonistic. These characteristics are the provision of good power quality, energy cost reduction and improvement in the reliability of the grid. The need to ensure that they can be accomplished together demands much richer Information and Communications Technology (ICT) networks than the current systems available. In this research we have identified the gap in the current proposals for the ICT of the power grid. We have designed and developed an ICT architecture for the neighbourhood sub-Grid level of the electrical network, where monitoring at this level is very underdeveloped because most current grids are controlled centrally and the response of the neighbourhood area is not generally monitored or actively controlled. Our designed ICT architecture, which is based on established architectural principles, can incorporate data from heterogeneous sources. This layered architecture provides both the sensors that can directly measure the electrical activity of the network (e.g. voltage) and also the sensors that measure the environment (e.g. temperature) since these provide information that can be used to anticipate demand and improve control actions. Additionally, we have de-signed a visualisation tool as an interface for a grid operators to facilitate a better comprehension of the behaviour of the neighbourhood level of the Smart Grid. Since we have noticed that energy aware ICT is a prerequisite for an efficient Smart Grid, we have utilised two different approaches to tackle this issue. The first approach was to utilise a cluster-based communication technique for the second layer of the architecture, which comprises Wireless Sensor Networks, where energy limitation is the major problem. Accordingly, we have analysed the energy-aware topology for wireless sensor networks embedded in the mentioned layer. We provide evidence that the proposed topology will bring energy efficiency to the communication network of the Smart Grid. The second approach was to develop a data reduction algorithm to reduce the volume of data prior to data transmission. We demonstrated that our developed data reduction is suitable for Smart Grid applications which can keep the integrity and quality of data. Finally, the work presented in this thesis is based on a real project that is being implemented in the medium voltage power network of the University of Manchester where power grid instrumentation, real data and professionals in the field are available. Since the project is long-term and the environmental sensor networks in particular are not currently installed we have evaluated some of our predictions via simulation. However, where the instrumentation was available, we were able to compare our predictions and our simulations with actual experimental results.

Over 29 years into the epidemic, fighting HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS (Acquired, Immune, Deficiency, Syndrome) continues to be a global concern. School-based computer-assisted HIV/AIDS interventions can provide innovative ways of preventing HIV among young people from diverse backgrounds in Africa. However, questions of technological, social and organisational readiness cannot be overlooked. This is because of: (1) being health interventions implemented in educational centres; (2) limited technological facilities and skills; (3) the prevailing norms that associate young people's sex education with sex experimentation. Despite these concerns, there are significantly few studies evaluating school-based computer-assisted HIV/AIDS interventions in developing countries. In addition, the commonly used health promotion theories have limited application in HIV prevention. These theories tend to lack sufficient attention to contextual mediators that influence implementation and impacts of HIV interventions.This research addresses some of these gaps by evaluating the implementation and the impacts of a computer-assisted HIV/AIDS intervention, known as the World Starts With Me (WSWM), which is implemented in schools in Uganda. To overcome some of the criticisms voiced above, this research employed mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct three investigations. Investigation 1 is a quantitative controlled before-after intervention study that assessed the level of significance of the impacts of the WSWM intervention on in-school young people. Investigation 2 is a qualitative cross-case analysis study that explored in-depth why the WSWM intervention implementation was completed in one school but abandoned in another. Investigation 3 is a qualitative study that assessed in-depth the impacts and the computer-mediated benefits of the WSWM intervention on out-of-school young people. Overall, this research involved 584 quantitative questionnaires answered by 292 participants, 53 interviewees and 2 focus group discussions comprising of 50 participants.Findings indicate that: (1) the intervention significantly improved the in-school young people's HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes self-efficacy, sex abstinence and fidelity, but had no significant impact on condom use. (2) Implementation factors include technological facilities, perceived usefulness, confidence and skills, cultural-religious compatibility, management support, match with routine workflow, and institutional climate, all of which were more favourable in the school that completed the intervention than in the school that abandoned it. (3) The intervention had positive impacts on the out-of-school young people's sexual behaviours, HIV/AIDS knowledge and perception of vulnerability, attitudes and self-efficacy. (4) Contextual mediators such as familial mediators, relationship characteristics, peer influence, gender-biased social norms, economic constraints and religious beliefs influence young people's uptake of HIV preventive measures. (5) Computer-mediated benefits of the intervention include privacy and confidentiality of the otherwise sensitive information, unlimited geographical accessibility, source of the otherwise denied sexuality and HIV/AIDS information, and interactivity and social support.

This thesis deals with problems of communication inside the company, especially with focus on its practical use in specific companies. The main objective was to describe and asses the state of communication and ICT tools used by small and medium sized companies. I aim to identify weak spots of internal communication and suggest possible solutions for removing them. Basic terms such as data, information, knowledge, communications, and internal company communication, ICT tools, used by small and medium sized companies, company culture and their respective relations are described in the first part of this thesis. The research part uses the data acquired in the first part to analyze internal company communication, and ICT tools used for communication by specific companies. Result of the thesis is the detailed analysis of internal company communication, comparison and specific suggestions for weak spots removal and achieving higher effectively of communications.

This thesis is focused on issues of Green ICT and application of its principles in small and medium enterprises in the Czech Republic. The aim of this thesis is to realize and evaluate a survey of the Green ICT implementation into management of small and medium enterprises in the Czech Republic. In order to achieve this goal it is necessary to define survey goals, create a questionnaire, choose respondents and ask them to complete it. Based on respondents answers it is necessary to evaluate the survey, make conclusions and meet the goals of the survey. The contribution of this thesis is the comprehensive presentation of Green ICT issues and mainly the survey realization and results evaluation. The conclusions arising from this survey provide insight into small and medium enterprises Green ICT issues. The conclusions summarize the current situation in the Green ICT implementation and characterize benefits which are considered to be important in small and medium enterprises in the Czech Republic, barriers which obstruct the implementation, and also factors which support the Green ICT introduction in enterprises. The thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part explains the sustainable development, Green ICT and shows relationships between ICT and sustainable development. In this part, there is also described an importance of Green ICT implementation into small and medium enterprises. The practical part is focused on the survey realization and evaluation. Firstly, the reasons leading to the realization of the survey are given, followed by the survey presentation, its goals formulation, survey questionnaire characterisation, detailed research questions definition and questionnaire description. The respondents answers are analysed, research questions are answered and then the conclusions are formulated.

Today's information society is changing dramatically along with the evolution of technology, which influences our perception of every aspect related to ICT greatly. New wave of social networks changes not only the nature our perception of the internet, but also the very basics of social interaction. Some of these phenomena were described in Norbert Wiener's definition of information ethics in 1954. Another phenomenon, very actual for researched field, is described in Alienation Theories by sociocybernetics expert R. F. Geyer. The objective of this study is to analyze sociocybernetics and its possible impacts on fileds of sociology and psychology, as well as digestedly compile fragments of interactive media and social networks, which can be directly linked to negative sociological and psychological effects. The study involves the overview, comparison and issues of rating systems as well as their application in countries of EU. The study also involves trends related to ICT and the internet in czech environment. This section is based on combination of results of long-term sociological study created by Doc. PhDr. Petra Saka CSc., and results of own research.

This thesis introduces trends in information systems mainly focusing on Green ICT. It is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical. At first, the objectives, structure of work and research based on available domestic and foreign sources are defined. The following chapter is devoted to concept of trend and its impact on the ICT sector along with a presentation of past and current trends. The key part of the first half of the work is a chapter concerning sustainable ICT. It contains a definition of the concept, reasons of devising, opportunities for greater usage, current state in the world, rankings of suppliers and "green" companies. The practical part describes the questionnaire distributed as well as a presentation of hypotheses for verification. It is followed by analysis of gathered data together with an intercomparison of several selected questions. The chapter concludes with evaluation of the stated hypotheses. The last section mentions important findings, assesses a level of fulfillment of the objectives and present possible future extension of the topic.

This work contributes to the theme of ICT outsourcing to PRC. It brings main themes of contemporal chinese economy and society which can enter outsourcing relation and influence it positively or negatively. These complex themes are presented with cultural, socioeconomic and historic relations. Thereof brings the framework for outsourcing to PRC. Themes, problems and opportunities of ICT outsourcing to PRC are based in research of international and local literature as well as own research in enterprise practice. First part of the work deals with term definition and description of ICT market in China. It brings the goal of this work, specify structure, and mentions important information regarding transcription of chinese characters in roman alphabet. Second part specify drivers and risks of outsourcing relations to PRC according to contemporal theories of respected academic authorities. It localise these theories to chinese reality based on statistical reading of international institutions. Third and fourth part deals with problematic of outsourcing relations based on relation lifecycle and case study. He lifecycle comes from MMDIS methodics and is supplemented with problems defined by international literature research. Case study is based on qualitative research and questioning of HP Enterprise Services employees. This part brings new views not included in literature and enrich this work. Fifth part deals with description of typical outsourcing relations. It assess it's suitability for outsourcing to PRC. Assessment is based on the facts and information in previous parts. The final part brings the framework for ICT outsourcing to PRC. It respect facts mentioned in previous parts. Based on that it defines the procedure, roles and documents which are suitable during outsourcing process.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the contemporary area of information technologies employed in health care (eHealth). Focusing on the systems already employed in the Czech Republic, it aims to analyse them, to quantify expenditures of their introduction and maximum benefits derived from these, as well as to evaluate their real current profit. Out of the three existing national systems, this dissertation concentrates on the two only (eRecept, ePACS), as it became impossible to evaluate the third -- IZIP system due to scarcity of the relevant information available. In the field of expenditures not only generally published numbers are taken into consideration, but this dissertation also evaluates the expenditures of other subjects involved (IT systems producers, health care providers, etc.). As the first dissertation in the Czech Republic it quantifies benefits derived from the existing eHealth systems and unlike foreign theses it greatly emphasizes just the expenditures of other subjects involved. Included in this dissertation is also the evaluation of achievements of the eHealth systems in the Czech Republic complete with supposed grounds for this situation. This dissertation also recommends courses of action for contractors of these systems to ensure future basis for more economical and successful eHealth systems. These recommendations are mainly based on analysis of development of the existing national eHealth systems. For the complex evaluation of the costs, maximum of possible and real benefit of the individual eHealth systems the research approach adopted in this dissertation includes descriptive method and SWOT analysis, extrapolation and abstraction, comparative and factor analysis.

This thesis reports on a study conducted to investigate the business information needs, seeking patterns and information services for small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) in Namibia. The survey methodology was used and questionnaires were distributed to 308 SMMEs and 60 business service providers in the Windhoek and Oshana districts of Namibia. An in-depth qualitative assessment of the business information services was also conducted in 15 business support organisations in the two districts. The data collected through questionnaires was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) while qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. The study revealed that SMMEs have a range of business information needs and top among them are information on: finance, marketing, training and business information. The study also revealed that the information seeking patterns of SMMEs are largely informal with limited use of formal business information services provided by a range of business support services. There are several business support organisations in Namibia providing a range of services, including the provision of business information services. However, the study established that there is need for a coordinated approach towards the provision of business information services in the SMME sector in Namibia. The study showed that the utilisation of ICTs among SMMEs is very limited to basic computer operations like word processing, book-keeping packages, and spreadsheets. The use of Internet as a business tool and source of business information among SMMEs is also very limited. However, the study shows that the utilisation of ICTs among business support organisations is advanced and that this could be used as a platform to improve information delivery services to the SMMEs. The study proposes a strategic model that could be used in the deployment of business information services in the SMME sector. This strategy is based on a definition of business information services, components of business information services and the steps that must be followed in the development of the services. The proposed strategy also outlines the steps that should be taken in the impact assessment of business information services. The study concludes by making several recommendations concerning the improvement of business information delivery services to the SMME sector. Business support organisations and, in particular government and Chambers of Commerce and Industry need to consider various approaches in the design of sustainable business information services. / Thesis (DPhil (Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Information Science / unrestricted